For many years, various types of recorded information, including recorded audio information encoded on phonograph records, books and other printed information, and, later, video tapes and DVDs, were distributed for retail sale from manufacturing facilities to central warehouses and distribution centers, from central distribution centers to regional and local distribution centers, and from regional and local distribution centers to retail stores for sale to consumers. This distribution method was relatively efficient, given the information-storage and communications technologies and the transportation system available at the time. However, distribution systems based on this method tended to be relatively static and rigid, as a result of which the distribution systems were characterized by relatively slow and deliberate adaptation to changing technologies, transportation systems, and consumer demand. With the advent of inexpensive personal computers, the Internet, Internet retailing, new types of information encoding, transmission, and storage, new information-distribution methods and systems have been developed and, in many cases, have rapidly overtaken and replaced the static and rigid recorded-information distribution systems designed for older technologies and transportation systems.
Distribution and retailing of digitally-encoded information through computer networks and communications systems directly to various portable devices, including MP3 players, cell phones, portable media players, and other such consumer-electronics devices is poised to largely supplant all previously used distribution channels and methods. Sales of audio CDs are generally flat, or declining, and sales of films and video encoded on DVDs are expected to rapidly decline as direct distribution of digitally encoded movies, music, multi-media presentations, and other digitally-encoded information allows consumers to quickly and efficiently download digital information onto various consumer-electronics devices from retail kiosks and personal computers.
Currently, the existence of various different standards and technologies for digitally encoding information, distributing the digitally-encoded information, and rendering the digitally-encoded information on various consumer-electronics devices has presented a challenge to digitally-encoded information distributors and retailers. While, for example, computer systems continue to rapidly advance in data-storage capacity and processing speeds, and electronic communications systems continue to rapidly advance in bandwidth, the relatively large amount of digitally-encoded information produced by encoding consumer-desired information objects, particularly movies, in a single format and according to one set of encoding parameters challenge designers, implementers, and users of digital-information-distribution systems based on computers and communications systems to provide sufficiently rapid delivery to the consumer-electronics devices of requesting users. However, considering the fact that there are many different types of consumer-electronics devices, each type often compatible with a subset of the many different formats for digitally-encoded information and optimally rendering a subset of the many different encodings that can be produced within a given encoding format by varying various encoding parameters, the task of efficient storing and delivering digitally-encoded information to consumer-electronics devices is extremely challenging. For this reason, designers, implementers, and users of digitally-encoded information-distribution systems continue to recognize the need for more efficient methods for storing and transmitting digitally-encoded information and faster methods for delivering digitally-encoded information to consumers through retailing systems and personal computers.